Dec 10

Today’s News 10th December 2021

  • UK Health Secretary Says "Unethical" Mandatory Vaccination "Will Not Work"
    UK Health Secretary Says “Unethical” Mandatory Vaccination “Will Not Work”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    The UK health secretary has stated that he has ‘no interest’ in legislating for mandatory COVID vaccinations, describing such a policy as ‘unethical’.

    In an interview with the BBC, Sajid Javid said “My view is that it’s unethical and also at a practical level it wouldn’t work.”

    Javid added, “If you’re asking me about universal mandatory vaccination, as some countries in Europe have said they will do, at a practical level I just don’t think it would work. Getting vaccinated has to be a positive choice.”

    In a separate Sky News interview, Javid added “I’ve got no interest in mandatory vaccinations, apart from in high-risk settings in the NHS and social care, which we’ve already set out that we will legislate for.”

    The comments come a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there will “come a point” for a “national conversation” on mandatory vaccinations.

    Watch:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Those reacting to Javid’s comments point out that for months Brits were told new lockdowns were not coming, then the government implemented them, and that vaccine passports would never be introduced, yet this week they were, as has been the plan all along.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 12/10/2021 – 02:00

  • Critical Race Theory Serves To Usher In Communist Agenda In America, Philosophy Professor Says
    Critical Race Theory Serves To Usher In Communist Agenda In America, Philosophy Professor Says

    Authored by Terri Wu and Jen Jekielek via The Epoch Times,

    Critical race theory has become the philosophic foundation supporting a Marxist communist agenda sweeping American society, according to philosophy professor Jason Hill.

    Acting as racial managers or agents for African Americans, practitioners of critical race theory (CRT) are after power and aim to “destroy all those foundational values, all those codified values, and principles that we use in times of crisis,” Hill said in a recent interview with Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

    Critical race theorists “want to first erase personal identity, then erase history, erase those codified values to usher in a new, what I would call, Marxist communist agenda in our society,” he added.

    CRT’s view of America as systemically racist is “a misperception of reality,” Hill said.

    This central proposition—that the oppression of African Americans still persists today—is then used to justify CRT practitioners speaking on behalf of all black Americans, depriving the community of their own agency, according to Hill. But these activists don’t actually care about uplifting the black population, he added.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Hill’s own experience in America, detailed in his 2018 book “We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People,” presents an alternative view to CRT’s portrayal of racism in the United States.

    With $120 in his pocket, Hill immigrated to the United States from Jamaica at 20. He worked to earn tuition for his degrees, including a doctorate in philosophy from Purdue University, and eventually became a tenured professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago.

    “When I came to this country, I promised that, in the name of the best within me, I would cultivate the American virtues of individualism and personal excellence and take advantage of the opportunities that lay before me,” said Hill in an opinion article published in 2018.

    In his view, as the 1964 Civil Rights Act became effective, American society entered an “age of post-oppression” because the legislation gave African Americans legal equality.

    Yet, black rage—not gratitude, nor a sense of relief—was an unexpected reaction to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Hill told The Epoch Times. He said the outcome was because of “a tremendous identity crisis” black Americans faced since their identity had been forged by oppression until then. As a result, white people felt guilty and embarrassed about putting African Americans in such a situation.

    Meanwhile, a self-esteem and self-respect movement centered upon pride in the African American identity emerged in the 1960s, Hill wrote in his new book “What Do White Americans Owe Black People: Racial Justice in the Age of Post-Oppression.”

    CRT emerged in the 1970s, initially as an offshoot of critical legal theory examining the role of race in law. Derrick Bell, an African American and a civil rights lawyer often credited as one of the originators of CRT, held that racial progress only occurred in America when it aligned with the interests of the white population, and doubted whether racial equality would ever be achieved.

    Hill says the CRT currently practiced is the third iteration of the movement, with the first in the 1970s under Bell and a second version in the 1990s. Today’s CRT has become the “philosophic foundation” for reparations and a “philosophic template” for many groups such as Black Lives Matter, a left-wing activist group that promotes “racial justice” in law enforcement and other domains, to find their justification.

    According to Hill, who considers himself an African American, African Americans should practice “radical forgiveness” to look to the future instead of pursuing reparations for past injustices.

    In his new book, he writes that the relinquishment of one’s racial identity is “an act of radical freedom.” That doesn’t mean that an individual doesn’t recognize their race; it just means that race won’t be one’s standard-bearer. In Hill’s view, culture, rather than race, serves as a more objective differentiator of individuals because culture points to common traits in beliefs, customs, and traditions.

    Hill suggested in his book an idea of a “heroic racial traitor,” a satirical name because one who didn’t base one’s identity primarily on one’s race might be considered as a “traitor” in certain communities. This person would forgive the systemic racism before emancipation, and focus on leveraging the opportunities provided by full equality before the law to achieve individual identification and success.

    Watch the full interview with Dr. Jason Hill below, or watch and read the full transcript on EpochTV.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 23:40

  • US "Successfully" Upgrades Nuclear Gravity Bomb For Modern Battlefield
    US “Successfully” Upgrades Nuclear Gravity Bomb For Modern Battlefield

    The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday it had “successfully” modernized the first B61 nuclear gravity bomb to increase the nation’s air-delivered nuclear deterrent capability amid threats of war with Russia in Ukraine and China in the South China Sea and or in the Taiwan Strait. 

    Over the years, we’ve been documenting (read: here & here) NNSA’s $12 billion program to modify aging B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs for the modern battlefield. The weapons first entered service in the late 1960s and needed upgrades to be more effective and increase lifespan by another two decades. 

    The first B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb paves the way for an estimated 480 bombs. NNSA expects full-scale production to begin in May 2022 and last through 2026. 

    “With this program, we’re delivering a system to the Department of Defense that improves accuracy and reduces yield with no change in military characteristics, while also improving safety, security and reliability,” Department of Energy Under Secretary and NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby stated.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Deputy NNSA Administrator for Defense Programs Charles Verdon said it’s “extremely satisfying” to see the B61-12 enter production. 

    “This successful effort results from years of seamless execution between our NNSA and U.S. Air Force teams. The integration of the NNSA Bomb Assembly and the Boeing Tailkit Assembly as well as the joint certification on multiple aircraft platforms stands as a testament to our continued commitment to national security and that of our allies and partners,” Verdon said. 

    We’ve noted multiple airframes, such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, have been conducting mock nuclear attacks with inert B61-12 over the past two years. 

    The nuclear gravity bomb upgrade is more than a year late. We noted bomb production was supposed to begin in 2020. The upgraded version can carry low-yield nukes to 50 kilotons nuclear bombs, guided by an advanced Boeing tail kit. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 23:20

  • Shellenberger: Why Looting Turned San Francisco Into A Ghost Town
    Shellenberger: Why Looting Turned San Francisco Into A Ghost Town

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

    Usually at this time of year, San Francisco’s luxury stores are decked with holiday garlands. Instead, they’re boarded up after widespread “flash mob” looting turned Union Square — the city’s most fashionable shopping district — into an area resembling a blighted neighborhood in Detroit. 

    “It’s a ghost town,” said Michelle Tandler, a San Francisco native and high-tech entrepreneur, whose photos of the stores barricaded in plywood went viral on social media this week. “Every store has a security guard. People are going to lose their jobs. And these things have a ripple effect.”

    Two weeks ago, San Francisco was the first of several progressive cities hit by smash-and-grab mobs of thieves, sometimes as many as 80 in a group. Video from the San Francisco looting of Louis Vuitton shows criminals walking casually out of the store, goods in hand. Other cities hit include Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis. 

    “This is traumatizing for our associates and is unacceptable,” said Best Buy CEO Corie Barry four days before yet another outlet was ransacked on Black Friday in a Minnesota mall. “We are doing everything we can to try to create as safe as possible environment.”

    These viral photos of boarded-up boutiques in San Francisco’s upscale Union Square district this week are a bleak encapsulation of the city’s approach to crime. Originally published in The New York Post.

    There may be several factors behind the looting.

    Part of the problem is a lack of police. San Francisco and other cities are short of cops, making robberies easier to get away with. San Francisco is short 400 officers, Los Angeles 300, with Minneapolis down by 200.

    Total police officers in the United States declined by 20,000 between 2008 and 2018, due to a tighter labor market, rising technological complexity within the profession, and the high psychological toll of policing. Anti-police protests following the death of George Floyd in May 2020 have led to further attrition.

    Progressive prosecutors are also letting more criminals free, sending the message that theft is an understandable response to poverty. In early 2020, San Francisco’s progressive District Attorney, Chesa Boudin, told the co-founder of Black Lives Matter before an audience at the Commonwealth Club that wealth inequality caused crime, and declared he would reduce prosecution of theft.

    “We have some of the richest people in the history of the world in this city,” he said.

    “Fortunes never imaginable 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. . . . When we have those extremes in close proximity, there’s going to be some level of property crime. That’s a reality.”

    DA Boudin has charged just 46 percent of theft arrests, a 16 point decline since he took office in 2020, and charged just 35 percent of petty theft arrests, a 23 point decline from two years ago.

    Meanwhile, more suspects are being let free before their court date, even though more than half of all offenders – and three-quarters of the most violent ones – released from San Francisco jails before their trial go on to commit new crimes.

    Would-be criminals rationalize what they are about to do before they do it. They think to themselves that nobody is hurt by robbing Louis Vuitton or even a Zara store. If they are clever, they might even justify to themselves that it is a good thing, since their actions redistribute wealth. Criminals since the 1960s have defended their crimes as the acts of revolutionary anti-capitalists.

    Such is the logic of socialism. The real crime, according to Karl Marx and others for the last 150 years, is private property and capitalism. “Property is theft” is one of the socialist movement’s most important slogans. Thus, the argument goes, any real-world crime — from robbing Louis Vuitton to assaulting a rich person — should be viewed as a revolutionary act. Anything that takes wealth from the rich and distributes it more equally, including pain, could be considered for the greater “good.”

    While criminal justice progressives say they seek “alternatives” to incarceration, those alternatives require little from the people released, not even abstinence. Such was the case with Darrell Brooks, Jr., the suspect in the killing of six people and wounding at least 40 others in Waukesha, Wis., by running them over in his car. The man had been released on $1,000 bail after running over his girlfriend, just three weeks earlier.

    Progressives have a more simplistic vision than they let on. To the public they promise a myriad of good ideas, including electronic monitoring, assertive case management and drug rehab. But pretrial diversion and other “alternatives” to prison have allowed criminals, sometimes even homicidal ones, to simply go free.

    DA Boudin has made his true intentions clear.

    “The challenge going forward,” he said at the Commonwealth Club in 2020, “is how do we close a jail?”

    Being soft on criminals has its consequences.

    For San Francisco, the result is a ghost town.

    For decades, this Bay Area destination has held conferences where it held itself up to the world as a model of a “livable, walkable” city.

    Not any more.

    “People are scared to go downtown,” native resident Tandler told me.

    “This is the destruction of a city.”

    *  *  *

    Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

    Donate to Environmental Progress

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 23:00

  • Beijing Scrambles To Hammer Yuan, Sets Fixing At Weakest On Record Vs Estimates
    Beijing Scrambles To Hammer Yuan, Sets Fixing At Weakest On Record Vs Estimates

    Just two days ago, we made a simple observation: in a world, where virtually every central bank was tightening, China was now aggressively easing – something we said would happen months ago when we discussed the plunge in China’s credit impulse – even though the “experts” said this was impossible with PPI inflation running red hot in the double digits (the experts were wrong).

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Then, just two days later, with the Yuan clearly ignoring the PBOC’s very clear and direct easing intentions (and actions) and continuing to surge, China made it very clear that it will no longer tolerate a stronger yuan early this morning, when Beijing hiked its FX reserve ratio from 7% to 9%, pushing the yuan sharply lower.

    Even so, some were not convinced that the Chinese central bank means business and proceeded to bid up the offshore yuan overnight into Friday in China. So, just to make it clear that the PBOC is serious, moments ago the PBOC sent out another clear shot across the bow of higher yuan expectations, when it fixed the yuan at a whopping 179 pips higher than consensus at 6.3702. This was the largest miss vs surveyed market participants’ fixing expectations on record, and followed China’s fix on Thursday which was already the largest miss since Oct. 14.

    The news promptly sent the CNH sliding further, dropping as far as 6.3893 against the dollar…

    … before sharply reversing, making China’s life even more difficult in the process.

    As Bloomberg’s Simon Flint writes, “this is an extremely strong signal, and should prolong the impact of the policy change announced on Thursday”… only as shown in the chart above, it did just the opposite and the yuan actually strengthen shortly after the kneejerk reaction.

    In any case, as Flint further notes, the average deviation in December is now around +32pips, more than double the January “record” of 14pips for 2021. In this respect, he writes, “the fairly obvious use of a de facto counter-cyclical factor (CCF) throughout 2021, despite CCF’s supposed suspension back in October 2020, begs the question as to why the authorities don’t admit to explicit use of CCF.”

    An official announcement of the reintroduction of CCF, along with an explanation for its reintroduction — i.e. that there is herding behavior or one-way expectations — would intensify its signal. However, this may be a last resort, given that such an announcement may open up the authorities to charges of obvious FX manipulation.

    … which of course would be problematic with the US just days earlier absolving China – and every other country – of FX manipulation in the Treasury’s biannual report (in which it did however criticize China of a lack of transparency on the yuan).

    In any case, as noted earlier in the previous post that the “PBOC May Do More To Curb Yuan After Drawing Line“, the rebound in the Yuan despite the record low fixing vs expectations, means that the PBOC will have to aggressively pursue one of the four options, previously delineated by Goldman:

    • More verbal warnings against one-way bets
    • Officially adding back the countercyclical factors to its yuan fixing, essentially setting the yuan weaker than otherwise
    • Accumulate dollar reserves and/or ask state banks and experts to hold dollars
    • Liberalizing FX outflows and tightening the channels for inflows.

    Among these tools, as Bloomberg’s Ye Xie noted, “the most effective would be allowing more outbound investments to offset the inflows.” But while authorities have already done some of that, including the launch of the Southbound bond connect that allows local residents to buy overseas bonds in Hong Kong, clearly it is not enough.

    Which leads us to a very ironic question: will China realize what has been clear to the Fed for so long, and use cryptocurrencies as an excess pressure “release valve”, in this case letting cryptocurrencies absorb a measured amount of FX outflows to avoid further overheating in the yuan.

    Of course, for that to happen, China will have to unburn all those bridges it torched mercilessly earlier this year when it sought to crush bitcoin in its foolish pursuit of widespread acceptance of China’s epic FX flop, the communist surveillance apparatus that is the digital yuan (which has so far been a catastrophic failure). Still, if it means avoiding an overheating currency just as China’s GDP is set to drop below 5% for the first time in its modern history, we are confident that Beijing will find a way to “look the other way” as China’s oligarchs park several hundred billions Yuan into cryptos…

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 22:44

  • Head Of President Biden's Security Detail Retires To Go Work On Wall Street
    Head Of President Biden’s Security Detail Retires To Go Work On Wall Street

    There’s nothing like the free market putting a little irony on display for all the world to adore.

    Such was the case when the increasingly Democratic-socialist President Joe Biden recently saw the head of his security detail leave duty in order to take a job on Wall Street.

    Biden’s top security brass is reportedly “retiring” to take a job” with a New York investment firm”, according to Bloomberg.

    The security guard, David Cho, has worked for the U.S. Secret Service for more than 25 years, the report says. He is the first Korean American to become special agent in charge of protecting the President. 

    Cho’s deputy, Darryl Volpicelli, is slated to replace him, the report says. 

    Cho received the department’s Exceptional Service Gold Medal in 2019 while serving President Trump. 

    We guess that while protecting the President may be a nice thing to put on your resume, it’s then only good for helping you find a job where you can make some real money…

    It’s almost as if making money can actually motivate people to be productive. Maybe someone should inform the President and his pals in “the squad” of this.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 22:40

  • TikTok Reportedly Censors Pro-Rittenhouse Video As "Hate Speech"
    TikTok Reportedly Censors Pro-Rittenhouse Video As “Hate Speech”

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have repeatedly addressed how social media companies now openly engage in censorship of political and social viewpoints. The latest example is from the company TikTok which reportedly censored a video from the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) group supporting Kyle Rittenhouse.  The video discusses the effort of Arizona State University (ASU) students to ban Rittenhouse from campus. TikTok then banned the pro-Rittenhouse statement from its platform, an act that should be offensive to anyone who supports the values of free speech. 

    On December 1, the group posted a video stating:

    “After Kyle Rittenhouse revealed that he had enrolled as an online student at ASU [Arizona State University], the collegiate woke mob was unleashed. A coalition of student groups has started a campaign to demand that Kyle Rittenhouse be expelled from ASU, citing that he is a violent racist murderer and poses a threat to the whole student body.”

    First of all, he was acquitted. And second of all, he was enrolled as an online student. Therefore, he will never interact with any of these social justice warriors. Therefore, they are trying to deny this young man a college education simply because they disagree with his beliefs and his actions. That is a dangerous precedent to set.”

    Censorship has become an article of faith for many on the left. Faculty and editors are now actively supporting modern versions of book-burning with blacklists and bans for those with opposing political views. Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll has denounced the “weaponization” of free speech, which appears to be the use of free speech by those on the right. So the dean of one of the premier journalism schools now supports censorship.

    Free speech advocates are facing a generational shift that is now being reflected in our law schools, where free speech principles were once a touchstone of the rule of law. As millions of students are taught that free speech is a threat and that “China is right” about censorship, these figures are shaping a new society in their own intolerant images.

    In one critical hearing, tech CEOs appeared before the Senate to discuss censorship programs. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, but then pledged to censor more people in defense of “electoral integrity.”

    Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, however, was not happy. He was upset not by the promised censorship but that it was not broad enough.

    He noted that it was hard to define the problem of “misleading information,” but the companies had to impose a sweeping system to combat the “harm” of misinformation on climate change as well as other areas. “The pandemic and misinformation about COVID-19, manipulated media also cause harm,” Coons said. “But I’d urge you to reconsider that because helping to disseminate climate denialism, in my view, further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world.”

    Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal also warned that he and his colleagues would not tolerate any “backsliding or retrenching” by “failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.” He demanded “the same kind of robust content modification” from the companies – the new Orwellian term for censorship.

    If this account is accurate (and TikTok has not denied it), the company is now censoring statements of support for an individual acquitted by an American jury. It is the latest example of the slippery slope of censorship on social media.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 22:20

  • America's Public Education System Is Collapsing As Teachers' Unions Force Schools To Close
    America’s Public Education System Is Collapsing As Teachers’ Unions Force Schools To Close

    America helped to pioneer the idea of public education. But a growing number of teachers and parents are wondering if the pandemic has finally broken America’s system of public education, as a growing number of school districts close schools for days or weeks, sometimes without the option of going remote.

    The NYT published a deep dive on the issues afflicting public schools across the US, issues that also impact the workforce since parents who can’t bring kids to school are often stuck scrambling for child care.

    One example of how schools are rolling back services as the struggle with budget shortfalls continues: Schools in Detroit, a city that has supposedly made a strong rebound after filing for bankruptcy protection back in 2013, will close its schools on Friday for the rest of the school year. There will be no online classes.

    Parents were outraged by the news, but a few days later, Detroit schools announced that schools would be closed for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Typically, kids are in school Monday and Tuesday, with a half-day on Wednesday.

    Of course, Detroit’s schools aren’t the only ones making these cutbacks. At least six other school districts in Michigan extended Thanksgiving break, and three districts in Washington State, including Seattle Public Schools, unexpectedly closed on Nov. 12, the day after Veterans Day. In Florida, Brevard Public Schools used leftover “hurricane days” to close schools for the entire week of Thanksgiving.

    In Utah, the Canyons School District announced that all of its schools would go remote one Friday a month from November through March, equivalent to more than a week of school.

    Parents aren’t only worried about logistical problems like child care and supervising remote learning: they’re starting to worry that the drastic cutbacks to educational services during the pandemic will leave their children permanently behind. Keep in mind, in China, students are spending more time in school, not less.

    For many school districts, the switch back to remote learning for at least part of the school week is a last-ditch effort to stop teachers from resigning (or retiring) en masse.

    And it’s not just the mask requirements that are getting to teachers. The last year has seen a surge in school violence, sometime gang-related, as students lash out. Teachers are exhausted from COVID, and from other issues like the battle over teaching CRT in classrooms.

    What’s worse is that school closures this year have often come with little notice. When administrators at Reynolds Middle School in Fairview Ore. cancelled classses between Nov. 18 and Dec. 7 – giving students an unplanned two weeks off due to what the school described as a “school fights and other outbursts from students”.

    The announcement gave parents just two days notice. Many were infuriated. “Are you kidding me?” said Missy Kisselman, the mother of Sophia, an eighth grader there. “I mean, are you kidding me?”

    Reactions like these will likely become even more commonplace as teachers unions push for even more days off. In Portland, Ore., the teachers’ union is proposing early-release days for some of its schools after students return from winter break. The president of the schools’ teachers’ union said they’re doing so because of the “alarming” number of teachers asking for guidance about retiring or quitting.

    Elizabeth Thiel, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, says her union is receiving an “alarming” number of inquiries from teachers asking for help resigning. If the union can figure out a plan now, she says, that may help avoid mass resignations, which would force schools to go entirely remote.

    “It is far better for our students and families to be able to plan on an inconvenience like that, than it would be for the whole system to stop functioning,” Ms. Thiel said.

    Remote learning is simply too much for most parents, especially single parents. If it becomes permanent, then pretty soon it won’t just be teachers abandoning public schools – parents might move students to private schools or charter schools.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 22:00

  • PBOC May Do More To Curb Yuan After Drawing Line
    PBOC May Do More To Curb Yuan After Drawing Line

    By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live commentator and analyst

    The PBOC has sent the strongest signal yet that its tolerance for currency appreciation has run out. By raising the FX reserve ratio for a second time this year, it may temporarily halt the yuan’s rise. But it did not address the drivers of the rally that sent the trade-weighted yuan to the strongest since 2015: the massive dollars inflows from exporters and portfolio investments. To keep the exchange rate in check, it needs to open up channels to allow money to leak out.

    The PBOC announced Thursday night that banks will need to hold 9% of their foreign currencies in reserve starting Dec. 15, from the current 7%. The reserve-ratio hike effectively drains the supply of dollars onshore, thus supporting the greenback against the yuan. It’s the second increase this year, following a similar move in June, which was the first hike since 2007.

    The move prompted the offshore yuan to decline 0.5%, the most since July. While the mechanical impact of the move itself is moderate, the signal is unequivocal that PBOC is getting uneasy about the currency rally. The central bank has repeatedly warned about FX volatility and consistently fixed the currency weaker than analysts expected in recent weeks. It’s probably not a coincidence, then, that both hikes came when the yuan.

    But Thursday’s move alone is unlikely to hold back the yuan for long. What’s behind the rally was the influx of dollars from exports and investment inflows. Neither forces are likely to reverse soon. The pandemic has bolstered China’s status as the factory of the world, while cutting off overseas traveling, a main channel for capital outflows. The inflows to its bond market are structural in nature as sovereign wealth funds, central banks and index followers just start to add Chinese assets into their portfolio.

    Keep in mind that these dollar inflows haven’t been fully converted to yuan. It’s a source of dry powder that could push the currency stronger if China Inc. decides to exchange their dollar holdings for yuan. Foreign-currency deposits at banks have surged 15% this year to a record $1 trillion, more than the FX loans they can dole out.

    Banks have been so desperate to find homes for these “excess” dollars that they tapped the once little-used foreign-currency reverse repo market (which is effectively collateralized dollar lending), which surged to a record $93 billion. They’ve also actively used the swap market to lend these surplus dollars out, driving swap points higher.

    The PBOC still has many tools at its disposal to prevent a currency overshoot that would hurt Chinese exporters’ competitiveness. Goldman Sachs’ economists including Maggie Wei list a few:

    1. More verbal warnings against one-way bets
    2. Officially adding back the countercyclical factors to its yuan fixing, essentially setting the yuan weaker than otherwise
    3. Accumulate dollar reserves and/or ask state banks and experts to hold dollars
    4. Liberalizing FX outflows and tightening the channels for inflows.

    Among these tools, the most effective would be allowing more outbound investments to offset the inflows. The authorities have already done some of that, including the launch of the Southbound bond connect that allows local residents to buy overseas bonds in Hong Kong.

    More is probably needed.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 21:40

  • "Potential Polar Vortex Event" Could Spark Bullish Reversal In NatGas 
    “Potential Polar Vortex Event” Could Spark Bullish Reversal In NatGas 

    Since mid-October, U.S. natural gas futures have been beaten down 40% as the narrative of colder weather and tight supplies quickly flipped and crushed bullish traders. As the Northern Hemisphere winter is less than two weeks away, new weather models suggest “significantly colder” temperatures could return for parts of the U.S. later this month into early 2022. 

    Meteorologists at private weather forecasting firm BAMWX expect a bullish setup for natgas futures. They say the narrative is flipping from warmer weather to the complete opposite as an Arctic polar vortex could plunge parts of the U.S. into a much colder weather pattern in January than today’s currently mild, above-trend temperatures.

    “Seeing an interesting pattern developing ahead leading up to Christmas and into early January ’22, as higher pressure looks to finally re-establish towards Alaska and the North Atlantic, pushing cold from the Arctic down into the US (after a record warm start to the month). If the MJO (Madden-Julian Oscillation) can continue to progress through phase 7 into 8 (and possibly into 1) mid to late December, this can also increase the potential for a Polar Vortex displacement event, sending more consistent cold air deeper into the US…a big risk to watch for the energy markets ahead,” Kirk Hinz, the chief meteorologist at BAMWX, noted. 

    BAMWX outlines now could be the time to find a long entry into natgas futures, or as they put it, “long UNG,” the United States Natural Gas Fund, LP. ETF. Their reasoning behind the play is quite simple: 

    Long UNG Equity, Why? Polar Vortex Jan 2022 Northeast – Front-month NG1 40% drawdown in 6 weeks – Things can change on a dime but the setup is very good in our view – When you get a nice – healthy- capitulation puke ahead of this kind of possible shift typically leads to drama reversal – seasonal pattern – GFS (global forecasting system) pointing to an increased probability of Polar Vortex disruptions – decent chance forecasts suddenly get significantly colder to end Dec and open up 2022. Much of the Street got caught very long in Sept, anticipating a brutally cold winter, along with supply risk – then came above ave temps and then the “flush” exit, a now a polar vortex? -BAMWX 

    Natgas traders should carefully monitor temperature forecasts and heating degree day estimates for the U.S. to gauge future energy demand. Natgas futures have found support on an upward sloping diagonal trend line. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that traders were buying the dip on the prospects of colder weather later this month. 

    Looking across the Atlantic, colder weather and tight supplies sent Dutch natural gas for next month, the European benchmark, over the 100 euro mark and near all-time highs. 

    The divergence between U.S. and European energy prices is remarkable and may also suggest a reversal in U.S. natgas is nearing. 

    If BAMWX is right, a monster reversal in U.S. natgas futures could be ahead if forecasts pan out. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 21:20

  • University Shielding Biden's Records Must Provide More Information Justifying Decision: Court
    University Shielding Biden’s Records Must Provide More Information Justifying Decision: Court

    Authored by Nick Ciolino via The Epoch Times,

    The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled partly in favor of conservative groups seeking access to documents related to President Joe Biden’s time in the Senate.

    Biden donated his Senatorial papers to the University of Delaware (UD) in 2012. This consisted of 1,850 boxes of archived records and 415 gigabytes of electronic records from Biden’s 36-year career in the Senate.

    The donation was made as a gift, with an agreement that places certain restrictions on the university’s ability to make the documents publicly available.

    Tara Reade, the woman who accused Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 at a Capitol Hill building while she was working as a staff assistant to the then-senator, has said that she believes a workplace discrimination and harassment complaint she filed against Biden at the time may be in the records housed at UD.

    Biden has emphatically denied Reade’s sexual assault allegations saying “it never happened.”

    In April 2020, Judicial Watch, Inc. and The Daily Caller News Foundation submitted requests under the Delaware Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to access the UD documents. The university denied both requests, saying the papers are not subject to FOIA because they are not considered “public records.”

    The Delaware Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision on Dec. 6, deciding that the university must provide more information justifying its decision to keep Biden’s U.S. Senate records secret.

    “We conclude that the University failed to carry its burden of justifying its denial of the Appellants’ FOIA requests,” the court documents read.

    The case returns to the Delaware Superior Court, which initially affirmed that the documents were not subject to FOIA.

    “The Superior Court is granted leave to accept additional evidence or submissions as it deems necessary and appropriate,” the ruling reads.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the University of Delaware for comment but did not receive a response in time for the publication of this article.

    In March of 2020, MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski repeatedly questioned Biden about whether he would release the documents in response to Tara Reid’s accusations.

    “The material in the University of Delaware has no personnel files,” responded then-presidential candidate Biden. “But it does have a lot of confidential conversations that I had with the president about a particular issue, that I had with the heads of state of other places. That that would not be something that would be revealed while I was in public office or while I was seeking public office.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 21:00

  • US Headed Toward "Cuban Missile Crisis" Situation Over Ukraine: Kremlin
    US Headed Toward “Cuban Missile Crisis” Situation Over Ukraine: Kremlin

    Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov issued a dire warning on Thursday, saying amid the soaring Ukraine tensions that Russia and the US could end up in a situation resembling the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He statements were meant to spur the two sides on toward entering deconfliction talks, to hammer together a “reasonable agreement” that aims to prevent further NATO expansion eastward, which is a “red line” of Putin.

    “You know, it could quite possibly reach that point,” he responded when asked by a reporter if things could escalate to Cuban Missile crisis levels with Washington and NATO over Donbass. “If comrades on the other side fail to understand us and keep doing what they are doing, we might wake up at some point to see something similar, if that’s what further developments will suggest.”

    Poland defense missile test, via Ruptly

    “That would be a total failure of diplomacy, a failure of foreign policy,” Ryabkov added. “But there’s still time to try to reach an agreement based on reason.”

    The West is still accusing Russia with making preparations for an invasion of Eastern Ukraine, while Putin is seeking “reliable and long-term security guarantees” that there will be no more NATO members or military positioning close to its borders. Putin reportedly pressed Biden on gaining such an agreement during Tuesday’s two-hour virtual summit.

    Meanwhile, there could another brewing ‘Kerch Strait incident’ which triggers armed confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. Late in the day Thursday Russia’s Navy began issuing dire warnings for a Ukrainian navy vessel to turn back before entering Russia’s territorial waters. Here’s how Russian media reported the ‘close call’ incident: 

    A Ukrainian navy vessel, named the Donbass, has set course to pass through Russian territorial waters off the coast of Crimea and is ignoring warnings to turn around, border officials have reported…

    In a statement issued late on Thursday night, Russia’s FSB announced that “on December 9 at 9.12am, the command ship ‘Donbass’ of the Ukrainian Navy left the port of Mariupol and began heading for the Kerch Strait.”

    According to officials, the vessel did not have permission to pass through the Russian-controlled Kerch-Yenikalsky canal that divides the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov.

    However, at the last moment as Russia’s navy was preparing for a showdown and some kind of intervention, the Ukrainian vessel reversed course. 

    Source: Border Guard Service of the FSB/RT News

    The incident shows how with tensions on edge, there’s some “probing” going on – perhaps in an attempt to test Russia’s willingness to respond. In the Black Sea and Crimean region, the world is perhaps a mere single provocation away from witnessing the start of a “shots fired” scenario, potentially drawing in Ukraine’s Western allies, including the United States. 

    Following all of this, it’s being reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signaled to the White House that he’s ready to meet directly with Putin to talk de-escalation. This after Zelensky spoke with Biden on Thursday.

    The Cuban Missile Crisis comparisons are perhaps apt, but the further irony is that Donbass is much closer to Russia’s border and territory than Cuba is to the US coast…

    Above: US news clipping from during the height of the historic Cuban Missile Crisis

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 20:40

  • New York City Dems Pass Bill Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote
    New York City Dems Pass Bill Allowing Non-Citizens To Vote

    Having tried (and failed and doubled-down) in two Vermont cities earlier this year, and following the bitch-slap rejection of lefter-than-left progressive policies in Virginia (and less so, but still notably, in Jersey), Democrats have succeeded in passing a bill allowing non-citizens to vote in America’s largest city.

    The Wall Street Journal reports that New York City’s Democrat-led city-council on Thursday voted 33-14 for the measure, which if enacted would take effect for council races in 2023.

    The bill that will let more than 800,000 residents who aren’t U.S. citizens vote in municipal elections.

    The measure would let lawful permanent residents or those authorized to work in the U.S. to vote in city elections if they have lived in the five boroughs for 30 days or more and meet the other requirements for voting. It wouldn’t grant voting rights to immigrants who entered the country illegally.

    About 10% of the city’s 8.4 million inhabitants have status as lawful permanent residents, mostly with green cards, according to an April report by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. 

    Despite saying he wouldn’t veto the bill (before he leaves office in a month), even New York City’s Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio has conceded that this is blatantly unconstitutional under New York law.

    “In the end, I want to make sure that citizenship, which people work so hard to achieve, is valued and is given its full weight,” the mayor said in late November during an interview on NY1.

    On the flip side, voters in Alabama, Florida, Colorado and North Dakota have voted to amend their state constitutions to mandate ballots be cast only by U.S. citizens.

    “Democrats are trying to dismantle the integrity of our elections,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in October.

    “In addition to attacking widely supported safeguards like voter ID, Democrats also want foreign citizens to vote in American elections. Republicans are fighting back on this far-left assault against election integrity. Unlike radical Democrats, we believe that our elections should be decided solely by American citizens.”

    New York City Councilman Joseph Borelli, a Republican from Staten Island, said he would vote against the measure.

    “I think there’s a number of people looking at lawsuits,” Mr. Borelli said.

    And so, just remind us again why it’s Republicans that are “threatening the very foundations of democracy”?

    As Thomas Hicks Jr wrote recently:

    “The case of New York City crystalizes just how far Democrats are willing to go to undermine election integrity. It goes without saying that voting is an immense privilege and responsibility. It’s also a right that should be reserved for U.S. citizens. Democrats want to water the meaning of citizenship down just so they consolidate power. The RNC isn’t going to let them. Our country will be better off for it.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 20:20

  • Tropical Warzone: Gunmen On Jet Skis Open Fire At Cancun Beach Resort 
    Tropical Warzone: Gunmen On Jet Skis Open Fire At Cancun Beach Resort 

    The Northern Hemisphere winter is just 12 days away, and some Americans have already packed their bags and headed to the sandy beaches of Cancun to escape cold weather. Vacationers this year have to be on guard amid a spate of shootings that have turned the area into a tropical warzone. 

    The latest incident occurred Tuesday outside the four-star Oasis Palm resort in Cancun. According to NBC News, a group of gunmen pulled up on jet skis and began shooting in the hotel zone. 

    Here are the jetskis used in the shooting. 

    Andy Guyrich and Kerry Arms, who were visiting from Minnesota, described the incident as terror on the beach:

    “We just had to hit the deck.

    “There was a delayed reaction for about maybe five seconds, then everybody started scrambling and screaming and crying, and running,” Arms said.

    The shooting at the Oasis Palm is just the latest in a string of violent incidents we have documented this year from Cancun to about 2 hours south in Tulum. 

    Last month, cartel gunfire erupted at a high-end resort at Hyatt Ziva Riviera. A shootout between two rival cartels left two drug dealers dead. 

    Multiple cartels are battling over who controls the drug trade to tourists. In October, in Tulum, gunfire among two rival cartels left two female foreign tourists dead and three injured. 

    Mexico was left with no other choice than to deploy 1,500 National Guard members to quell the violence in resort areas.

    Readers may recall, as early April, we noted “”Crisis In Paradise” – Mexican Tourist Mecca Descends Into Chaos As Cartels Wage War During Spring Break,” documenting the rapid deterioration in the resort areas as cartels waged war on one another with tourists in the crossfire. 

    A little late but a good start, the US Department of State issued a travel warning to Americans vacationing in Cancun to “exercise extreme caution” amid the surge in violence. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 20:00

  • Maine Governor Activates National Guard To Help At Hospitals After Mandate Forced Out Hundreds
    Maine Governor Activates National Guard To Help At Hospitals After Mandate Forced Out Hundreds

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday activated the state’s National Guard to go to hospitals and help workers after her COVID-19 vaccine mandate caused hundreds of nurses and other healthcare employees to leave their jobs or get fired.

    Mills, a Democrat, said the move was to “help alleviate short-term capacity constraints at hospitals and maintain access to inpatient health care services for Maine people amid a sustained surge of COVID-19.”

    One of the most-vaccinated states in the country, Maine has seen COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations increase in recent weeks.

    Out of 379 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Maine as of Dec. 8, 117 were in critical care and 60 were on ventilators.

    Most are not vaccinated, according to state data.

    At the same time, the bulk of inpatient beds were not being used for COVID-19 patients, according to data reported to the Department of Health and Human Services by state facilities.

    Dr. Andrew Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth, said hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the healthcare system are the highest ever.

    Mueller told reporters in a virtual briefing that a shortage of workers is affecting facilities in addition to the rising number of COVID-19 cases and an “incredible demand for other, non-COVID services.”

    Hundreds of workers quit or were fired due to Mills’ COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which the Supreme Court declined to block, Maine hospital systems have told news outlets.

    In addition to the workers lost, many workers either have COVID-19 or are being investigated for possible COVID-19, forcing them to miss work, healthcare executives said. They also described a national shortage of qualified workers.

    “The challenge we’ve got is finding qualified healthcare workers, because they don’t exist. Our nation’s lost over half a million health care workers who resigned, retired, left the field in the last several months. And so there’s a huge workforce crisis across our country,” Mueller said.

    Maine Gov. Janet Mills, left, is seen during a summit in New York City in 2019. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

    The National Guard personnel will provide support to facilities and units that get patients who are discharged from hospitals due to being overwhelmed. They’ll also help administer monoclonal antibodies, one of the best-known COVID-19 treatments, in a bid to keep COVID-19 patients who aren’t in hospitals out of hospitals.

    “I’m deploying these National Guard members across the state of Maine to expand our hospitals’ capacity to treat people with COVID-19 and other serious conditions,” Mills told a press conference.

    The deployment will start next week and run through the end of January.

    As many as 75 members will be sent to assist healthcare sites.

    Mills’ administration also asked the federal government to send COVID-19 surge response teams to two Maine hospitals. The teams would help workers at Maine Medical Center in Portland and Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.

    Maine Medical Center closed six operating rooms this week to make more space for intensive care units.

    Central Maine Medical Center has also seen an increase in patients, including COVID-19 patients.

    “Any additional resources that can be provided, whether from the state or federal level, during this time when resources are stretched thin for Maine hospitals are greatly appreciated,” Steve Littleson, the president and CEO of Central Maine Healthcare, the parent company of the center, said in a statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 19:40

  • Scientists May Have Discovered Why COVID Hits Fat People Harder
    Scientists May Have Discovered Why COVID Hits Fat People Harder

    Since the beginning of the pandemic, one of the most common denominators in deaths and severe Covid is obesity.

    A vicious cycle…

    Pre-vaccine, 73% of those who died of (or with) Covid-19 were either overweight or obese – which tracks with the percentage of overweight and obese Americans.

    Distribution of deaths among adults hospitalized for COVID-19 in the United States from March to December 2020, by body mass index

    In addition to having generally poor circulatory health, an obese person is more likely to have other conditions that are risk factors for severe Covid, including low-level inflammation, diabetes and lung disease.

    A September 2020 meta-analysis suggested a linear relationship between BMI and Covid-19 severity and mortality.

    Meanwhile, and this is unrelated to the point of this article – 75% of Covid deaths to date (unvaxxed and vaxxed) in the United States are retirement age or older, with another 18% between the ages of 50 and 64-years-old. So the vast majority of US Covid deaths are in older Americans, 73% or so of whom are overweight or obese.

    Number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) deaths in the U.S. as of December 8, 2021, by age*

    Now, scientists may have a clue as to why Covid affects fat people more severely – it infects both fat cells and certain immune cells within body fat, prompting the body to respond aggressively, according to the New York Times, citing a study published in October.

    “The bottom line is, ‘Oh my god, indeed, the virus can infect fat cells directly,'” said Dr. Philipp Scherer, a scientist who studies fat cells at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not involved in the research.

    “Whatever happens in fat doesn’t stay in fat,” he continued. “It affects neighboring tissues as well.”

    The research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal, but it was posted online in October. If the findings hold up, they may shed light not just on why patients with excess pounds are vulnerable to the virus, but also on why certain younger adults with no other risks become so ill.

    The study’s senior authors, Dr. Tracey McLaughlin and Dr. Catherine Blish of the Stanford University School of Medicine, suggested the evidence could point to new Covid treatments that target body fat.

    …

    The finding is particularly relevant to the United States, which has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. Most American adults are overweight, and 42 percent have obesity. Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaska Native people in the U.S. have higher obesity rates than white adults and Asian Americans; they have also been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, with death rates roughly double those of white Americans. -NY Times

    “Maybe that’s the Achilles’ heel that the virus utilizes to evade our protective immune responses — by hiding in this place,” said Dr. Vishwa Deep Dixit, a professor of comparative medicine and immunology at Yale School of Medicine.

    According to Stanford’s Dr. Blish, “This could well be contributing to severe disease … We’re seeing the same inflammatory cytokines that I see in the blood of the really sick patients being produced in response to infection of those tissues.”

    Mysteries of fat…

    As the Times notes, body fat is more than just an inert form of energy storage. On the contrary, fat is biologically active, and produces both hormones and immune-system proteins that affect nearby cells, causing a persistent low-grade inflammation regardless of any actual infection.

    Inflammation is the body’s response to an invader, and sometimes it can be so vigorous that it is more harmful than the infection that triggered it. “The more fat mass, and in particular visceral fat mass, the worse your inflammatory response,” Dr. McLaughlin said, referring to the abdominal fat that surrounds internal organs.

    Fat tissue is composed mostly of fat cells, or adipocytes. It also contains pre-adipocytes, which mature into fat cells, and a variety of immune cells, including a type called adipose tissue macrophages. -NY Times

    As part of the study, Dr. McLaughlin, Blish and other colleagues experimented on fat obtained from bariatric surgery to see if the tissue would become infected with Covid. They found that yes, they could – but certain immune cells known as macrophages were also susceptible, and produced a ‘robust’ inflammatory response. The team also analyzed fat cells from Europeans who had died of Covid, and found the disease contained within fat near various organs.

    According to Johns Hopkins professor of cardiology, Dr. David Kass, a man whose ideal weight is 170 lbs, yet who weighs 250 lbs, is carrying a substantial amount of fat in which the virus can ‘hang out’ – where it can then replicate and trigger a ‘destructive immune system response.’

    “If you really are very obese, fat is the biggest single organ in your body,” said Kass, who added that Covid “can infect that tissue and actually reside there.”

    “Whether it hurts it, kills it or at best, it’s a place to amplify itself — it doesn’t matter. It becomes kind of a reservoir.”

    And as journalist Alex Berenson wrote in July…

    In April, British researchers published a definitive paper on the subject in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, a peer-reviewed journal. The researchers examined the medical records of almost 7 million people in England to look at the link between obesity and severe outcomes from Covid, including hospitalization and death.

    The topline findings show only a moderate link between extra weight and Covid risk. But when the researchers looked more closely, they found that’s because in older people, being overweight does NOT drive excess risk.

    So the researchers divided the patients into four age ranges: 20-39, 40-59, 60-79, and over 80. They found that in the two younger groups – including adults up to age 60 – being obese was associated with nearly ALL the risk that Covid would lead to intensive care or death. The findings held even after they adjusted for many different potential confounding factors, like smoking, non-weight-related illnesses, and wealth.

    The excess risk was extremely high even for people who weren’t morbidly obese – defined as a body-mass index of 40 or more. A person between 40 and 60 with a BMI of 35 – someone who is 230 pounds and 5’8” – had about five times the risk of dying of Covid of a person of normal weight. For younger adults, the excess risk was even higher, and for morbidly obese people even higher still.

    In contrast, people of normal weight under 40 are at essentially no risk of death from Covid. The researchers found their rate to be under 1 in 10,000 per year. Even in the 40 to 59 age range, normal-weight adults had an annual risk well under 1 in 1,000.

    *  *  *

    Lose the weight, folks. And for those who need to shed pounds fast, a ketogenic diet may actually act as a preventative measure.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 19:20

  • Biden Plan To Clear California Port Congestion Stalls
    Biden Plan To Clear California Port Congestion Stalls

    By Greg Miller of Freight Waves,

    “We’re starting to see some traction,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka proclaimed on Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. “Those aging containers are down by 50% over the last six weeks.”

    Seroka was referring to long-dwelling containers targeted by a dramatic, highly controversial fee plan backed by the Biden administration. Or rather, a plan that threatens to levy a fee that no one, including the ports, ever wants to be levied. The fee on long-dwelling containers was set to begin on Nov. 1, then delayed until Nov. 15, then to Nov. 22, Nov. 29, Dec. 6 and Dec. 13. The string of delays has led to an increasing belief that the fee will never happen.

    Will a plan to threaten a fee continue to work after so many reprieves, particularly as the “empty Christmas shelves” political risk dissipates?

    It’s already working a lot less than it used to. American Shipper analyzed all of the available statistics and found that progress in clearing long-dwelling containers has slowed significantly over recent weeks.

    Shipping consultant Jon Monroe wrote in his weekly newsletter:

    “My money says the new port surcharge may never be implemented — as long as we continue to improve the port congestion. And is this happening? NO. But don’t tell anybody. This is best kept a dirty little secret left uncovered.”

    Meanwhile, percentage changes such as the one cited by Seroka are inherently prone to spinning. The White House reports declines measured in twenty-foot equivalent units, whereas the ports publicly report declines in containers, regardless of size. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles report their container numbers in two different ways. And any percentage change is heavily skewed by which date range you pick.

    Port of Long Beach

    The fee plan, if ever implemented, would charge ocean carriers $100 per import container for boxes moving by truck that dwell for nine or more days, and for boxes dwelling six or more days that move by rail. The charge would escalate by $100 a day until a container leaves the port. Carriers have said they will pass the charge along to shippers.

    The Port of Long Beach provides statistics on the number of containers that meet these two specific “late” definitions. But the Port of Los Angeles does not.

    For Long Beach, the vast majority of reported late containers are in the nine-days-plus category for trucking, not the six-days-plus category for rail. The total on Monday, 20,772 containers, was actually 20% higher than the total three weeks prior, on Nov. 13, of 17,271 containers. Excess-dwell containers represented 35% of total import containers on the port on Monday, up from 29% on Nov. 13.

    Looking all the way back to Nov. 2, five weeks ago, the total number of excess dwell containers in Long Beach was down 22% as of Wednesday (the decrease is even higher, at 32%, when comparing to Oct. 28). Yet the numbers in Long Beach have plateaued more recently. Furthermore, the number of total import containers at Long Beach terminals has not decreased — it has actually slightly increased. There were 57,042 import containers at Long Beach terminals on Nov. 1 and 57,970 on Tuesday.

    Port of Los Angeles

    The Port of Los Angeles posts numbers on containers by days dwelling: up to four, five to eight, nine to 12, and 13-plus. Stats are available from Nov. 1. (The Port of Long Beach has these figures as well, but only from Nov. 9.) The number of containers in Los Angeles dwelling nine days or more is a fair approximation of the number that would be charged excess-dwell fees if those fees were ever charged, but it excludes late rail containers in the six-to-eight-day category.

    On Oct. 24, the day before the fee announcement was made, there were 37,410 containers in Los Angeles dwelling nine days or longer. The decline over the past six weeks matches the figure cited by Seroka on Bloomberg.

    Unlike in Long Beach, Los Angeles has seen a sharp drop in total import containers on the port. On Nov. 1, there were 87,485. On Wednesday, there were 57,311.

    Despite the drop in total import containers at Los Angeles terminals, the percentage of containers dwelling nine days or more versus the total was 34% on Wednesday, the same percentage as Nov. 21.

    As far as the long-dwelling containers targeted by the fee-threat plan, progress stalled in Los Angeles around Nov. 23. The numbers over the past two weeks have plateaued.

    White House reports

    The White House puts out twice-monthly releases on supply chain issues, including stats on containers dwelling nine days or more at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The White House reports the numbers in TEUs, not containers (most of the containers in LA/LB are 40-footers).

    On Nov. 29, the White House reported that the number of long-dwelling containers in the two ports was 75,000 TEUs, a week-on-week drop of 7% from 81,000 TEUs on Nov. 22. The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reported a combined 45,458 containers dwelling nine days or more on Nov. 22, and 44,919 on Nov. 29, representing a much smaller week-on-week drop of 1%.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 19:00

  • Fauci: Definition Of 'Fully Vaccinated' Will Be Changed
    Fauci: Definition Of ‘Fully Vaccinated’ Will Be Changed

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    The definition of fully vaccinated in the United States will be changed, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday.

    “It’s going to be a matter of when, not if,” Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an appearance on CNN.

    The term fully vaccinated presently refers to a person who receives two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab.

    Fauci previously said the definition could be changed. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—which set the definition—has left open the possibility of changing it.

    The definition is used by authorities imposing vaccine mandates across the country, including the federal mandates against healthcare workers and government contractors.

    Several of those mandates have been blocked in courts for now due to worries they’re illegal.

    Fauci said the timing of the change may be linked to the ongoing cases.

    “It has implications for that, and that’s the reason why it matters,” he said.

    The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.

    Effectiveness of all three of the vaccines authorized for use in the United States drops the longer time goes on from a person getting one, according to real-world data and a slew of studies.

    There’s been “a slow but steady waning of immunity over time,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said last month.

    Walensky and other health authorities, citing the waning efficacy, recently cleared boosters for all adults 18 and older. Late last month, they recommended that virtually everybody in that population get an additional jab.

    The drop in protection is even more pronounced against the newly identified Omicron variant, according to four studies released this week.

    Vaccine makers, including Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, are racing to develop reformulated shots that will target the variant specifically.

    BioNTech CEO Uğur Şahin told reporters Wednesday that the data makes it “very clear that our vaccine for the Omicron variant should be a three-dose vaccine.”

    Some U.S. institutions have already started requiring boosters for people to meet vaccination rules, including multiple college campuses.

    Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a Pfizer board member and former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said last month he thinks the CDC will update the definition of fully vaccinated to include boosters, but not until next year.

    “I think at some point they’re going to, but not this year. I think eventually this will be considered the three dose vaccine, but I would be hard pressed to believe CDC is going to make that recommendation any time soon,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 18:45

  • Jussie Smollett Guilty Of Faking Race-Baiting, Homophobic Attack
    Jussie Smollett Guilty Of Faking Race-Baiting, Homophobic Attack

    Three years after the “Empire” actor claimed that two Trump-voting, MAGA-hat-wearing white folk, attacked him, tied a noose around his neck, and used racist and homophobic slurs, in downtown Chicago, Jussie Smollett has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of lying to police about the robbery and hate crime he had staged against himself.

    Jurors heard six days of testimony from 13 witnesses and deliberated for less than 10 hours.

    “He’s dumb enough to go into Obama’s city and pretend there’s Trump supporters running around with MAGA hats? Give me a break,” defense attorney Nenye Uche told jurors in his closing arguments. 

    “There was no hoax,” Smollett told jurors. 

    “What happened to me, happened.” 

    They obviously didn’t believe him.

    As a reminder, NYPost reports that the actor was originally charged with staging a hate crime in February 2019 but in a stunning reversal, Chicago prosecutors dropped all charges against him after he agreed to forfeit a $10,000 bond and showed proof that he’d completed two days of community service.

    In the backdrop of Smollett’s failed performance as a hate crime victim, scandal soon engulfed Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who was widely criticized for the move and was later found to have made a series of unethical blunders in her handling of the case. 

    We look forward to hearing from VP Kamala Harris who was among the first to leverage the race-baiting angle of the hoax hate-crime,  condemning what she called “an attempted modern day lynching.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    We also wonder if President Biden is still “with Jussie”…

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    So what’s left now?

    The actor faces up to three years in jail for the crimes, but experts have said he would likely be placed on probation and ordered to perform community service.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Cue the cries that ‘justice was not done’…and how the ‘systemic racism’ is really to blame…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 12/09/2021 – 18:34

Digest powered by RSS Digest